I remember the blue Chevy Caprice, how I almost always sat in the middle of the back seat between Janet and Larry. I remember our air conditioner going out one summer vacation, en route from Albuquerque to Los Angeles…or, wait…maybe that was in Carmen Chavez’s car, the year her parents invited me to Disneyland.
I remember that trip, sweating in the back seat with Carmen, we must have been 12 or 13. We were crossing the Arizona desert, and for the first time I discovered that I smelled. I remember clamping my arms tight against my sides, I didn’t know about deodorant yet or bring any on the trip, and I was too ashamed to ask Carmen if she had any. Somehow, discovering that part of bodily functions was almost worse than starting my period years later.
I remember the car we got after the Caprice. It was a Plymouth Valiant, 1974, gold, and about the most non-descript mid-sized car you’d ever seen. I drove it when I was 14-3/4, that was how old you had to be in New Mexico in those days to get a drivers license.
On one of my first driving gigs “sans” parents, I went cruising with Carmen and Diedra in a neighborhood off Griegos Road. I zigged-zagged up a street, turning the steering wheel a sharp right, then a sharp left. I remember how much we squealed as we slid across the front bench seat. You never wore seat belts in those days, so slip and slide we did.
I wasn’t going fast, maybe 20 miles per hour, but when I turned the wheel left both Carmen and Diedra slammed against me, causing my arms to fly off the wheel and out the open window. I was pinned to the side of the door and couldn’t get control of the car. It traveled up onto the sidewalk and into someone’s front yard before being stopped dead by a big tree.
We weren’t hurt, but we were panicked. It was night, I put the car in reverse and high-tailed it out before anyone could come out of the house. I drove the three or so miles home as fast as I could on a flat front tire. I remember how we rehearsed our story of “what happened.” A dog came running out of no where, we were going to say, and I swerved to miss it.
When we got to the house, Dad admonished me for my having ruined the tire rim by driving on it. He asked us what kind of dog it was. I looked at Carmen and Diedra, we all shrugged, and then he asked how big a dog? Big, I said just as Diedra said Small. That was it. My friends got sent home, and I got sent to my room.
I eventually named the car “The Box,” and to counteract the embarrassment my friends and I felt about being seen in it, I came up with catchy phrases:
The Box, economical yet sporty
The Box, little yet big
The Box, fast yet slow
Dad tried to give me The Box when I graduated from high school, but I declined. He sold it to someone then used the money to buy me Larry’s 1971 Honda Civic. I was a spoiled brat.
-related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — MEMORIES OF CARS
The box! I love it. Ours was the yellow submarine. It was a really ugly yellow station wagon with those long panel seats and yep, no seat belts as well. It was handed down from my friend’s Dad for her and her 6 siblings to share. That thing floated down the road and when you put on the brakes, you’d get thrown forward, then shot backwards from the seat being adjusted too many times to accommodate all the kids. I swear it had more dents than a kicked can. :O
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This had me rolling around………I could never have driven at that age…….I’m such a nervous nellie about danger that even when I was gifted lessons at 17, I passed. Mind you, given I ended up learning to drive in London (terrifying) at 32, I should have gone for it. I just always think of hunks of metal careering along……okay that’s my next poem *grin*. And I loved this write, it brought back my own teenage years so vividly! Thanks.
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Ah, the dog. Secrets. My sister was in the car when I had Secret car boo boos. A few days after I got my license, I backed out of a space in the grocery store lot and … nobody was looking, no apparent damage was done … only my sister knew I’d hit and run.
Later I misjudged things while pulling out to try again on parallel parking and got wedged tightly against the car to my right. The car owner arrived on the scene while I was sweating about how to get out of this situation. I asked him to move my car. He wouldn’t. He told me how to pull ahead. I offered my name and everything. “We have insurance!” But he wouldn’t take it. “Don’t worry about it,” he told me. I didn’t tell my father. He found some paint scrapes a couple of months later when he washed the car. “I don’t know!” How could I confess all that time later?
My sister blackmailed me. That wasn’t fair. I never caught her doing anything.
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ybonesy, I cracked up when I got to your names for The Box:
The Box, economical yet sporty
The Box, little yet big
The Box, fast yet slow
It’s just so you to do something like that. You bring up the subject of teenage accidents and fender benders. It reminds me of some of the crazy things we did in cars.
I think my brother totalled his when he was in high school. Or maybe it was just a bad accident. I can’t remember for sure, since I had already left for college. But I remember how relieved we were he was okay. I think he got in a lot of trouble though.
These days I hear a lot about teenagers in accidents in Minnesota. A lot of times it’s inexperience or winter driving — not used to driving in ice and snow. But other times it’s cell phones and texting and going too fast.
Hey, are you looking forward to teaching your girls to drive? Or will it be Jim that takes them out?
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I love these memories we all share of our first car driving experiences, trying to put a bandaid on the obvious. I wrapped my Dad’s big old Dodge around a pole, and then parked on the road the wrong way (with the damage facing out) for 2 days before he walked around and saw it. I feel bad about it now – too late! My daughter returned the favor totalling our first “new” car at age 16 in a 5-car pileup.
My favorite car was a ’69 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, which we drove around the village and all over for several years, known as “the Boat” – I posted a story with photos on my blog in July 2003, maybe you will enjoy it – scroll down for “Maybelline” – and there are more old car photos below from 4th of July parades.
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oh, here’s the link, forgot it – Maybelline
http://chickenlil.blogspot.com/2003_07_01_chickenlil_archive.html
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The Box… and the Boat… such affectionate names for the vehicle. This is a great story, the bit about the dog is something lame i might have thought of for my early fender benders.
Our family car was a Chrysler, the one with the Chinese eyes, and the first time dad let me drive it, I ensconced the Boat, as we called it, firmly in a ditch in front of a friend’s house. i was so anxious to avoid that ditch while parking that when my front wheel started to go down, i gunned the motor. it took 2 tow-trucks to lift that bloody monster car out of the ditch – naturally dad had to pay for it as I had no money whatsoever. That was the first and last time i was given access to the Boat – guess it was cheaper that way. G
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LOL. Such funny stories, thanks for sharing them. Boxes and Boats and Maybellines (I’ll check out that link, lil—did you call ‘er “Mabel”?). Boy, all these universal experiences of kids denting or wrecking their parents’ cars, I’m not so sure I’ll ever let Dee and Em drive.
I saw something on the news last night about how the process for getting a drivers license has changed dramatically in recent years and how there’s a progressive “prove-you’re-mature-enough-to-drive” process for eventually getting drivers licenses. I know that the minimum age has gone up in NM, and I’m all in favor of all the yardsticks going up. We were way too young to be driving back in my day.
QM, I’m not sure which one of us will teach the girls to drive. My sister Janet was the first person to teach me, and then in those days we got formal drivers’ education through our public high schools. Remember those movies where they showed fake compound fractures? Ugh, I always felt like passing out.
Nowadays you have to go to a private drivers ed class if you want to get a license. So maybe neither one of us will teach the girls, although that’s a real rite of passage, isn’t it? I need to do a Writing Practice just about Drivers Ed, as my uncle was an instructor and always brought his students to my mom’s house and made them sit in the driveway while he went inside and had coffee and chatted with Mom. My mom was just so easy to hang out with; now that I think about it, a lot of people, including my friends, liked to hang at the house. 8)
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jo, learning to drive in London at age 32? For a nervous Nellie, you sure are brave!!! 8)
Heather, what is it with those big old station wagons—they do float, don’t they? It’s almost like the bodies are floating on extra shocks or something. I know that feeling exactly.
ritergal, I held many of my siblings’ secrets, but I rarely used that info against them. Are you kidding?—just being able to hang around with them was such a treat. They wouldn’t have taken me anywhere if I’d have blown the whistle on them. 8)
QM, teen accidents—ugh. All parents must absolutely shake in their boots over the prospect. And so many teens are just not experienced enough, and the schools are often on such busy boulevards.
lil, a 5-car pile up? You must have been so freaked out when you heard about it. Yikes.
G., oh man, tow trucks. Why is it that kids always seem to end up driving near ditches and sand dunes and every place they really shouldn’t be with a car?
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Yes, she was in our little sedan on Wyoming, not going very fast, but couldn’t stop in time, crunched under car#3, a Jeep in front of her, and smacked in the rear by a VW. Fortunately she was not hurt at all, just shook up. The last time we saw that car it was squashed up in a salvage yard. The adjustor knocked off some of the value because of a small side dent he noticed, which had happened when Max (age 5) was playing in the car, then only days old, popped the shift out of gear, and it had rolled down the driveway – across the street – and hit a mailbox! (I was not there for that, but Max was really stubborn about not getting out of the car, however that experience cured him.)
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yb, I had to laugh while I read this! The secrets. I’m sure we all have at least one involving our parents car. Mine happened when I was 16 & left a friend of mine drive my Mothers early 70’s Mercury Marqius. The car was a boat & it was canary yellow with a brown landau top & brown leather interior. Connie & I were on back country roads when she asked if she could drive. She was doing just fine until we turned left. She was going too fast to negotiate the turn & was headed straight for a small church. I grabbed the steering wheel & told her to brake. She hit the gas pedal instead & we slammed head on into a telephone pole. Our injuries were minor considering the impact. Connie & I made a pact to tell the police & our parents that I was driving. I was worried that I would lose my license & she wouldn’t get hers if the truth be told. To this day I have never told my parents the truth about the accident.
I remember when our sons were learning to drive. Sitting in the passenger seat is very frightening, especially when I was looking at mailboxes that were too close for comfort! D
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lil, I just read your post on Maybelline. I chuckled out loud when I got to the end, and Em asked, What’s so funny, Mom?
What a great post! As smooth and buttery as Maybelline’s interior!! I encourage all to check it out. And to think you posted it back in 2003. My, girlfriend, you’ve are a blogging pioneer.
The note, too, in Comment #10 about Max knocking the stick shift out of gear and your car rolling back into a mailbox—ha! No wonder cars are so important to childhood. There are so many car mishaps and car memories.
diddy, why we let our friends drive our parents’ cars—that, too, must be a universal thing!! I wonder what your dad would think if you told him what really happened. I’m going to add the tag “Secrets” to this post, although my dad knew I was lying about the dog and I eventually did tell him the truth about it.
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Thanks, I thought you’d enjoy the story. I think sometimes that Maybelline personified an era in my life – a little behind the times, a little ahead of the times… and what a ride it was. Not without the bumps and grinds, but wild as hell. Hard to believe we survived it and still can laugh.
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Yeah, I do have to say lil, that when I saw the photos of the car, I thought it was from your childhood—your parents’ car. So then as I read, I realized, no, this was the car you and Dr. L. had for your familia. So, yeah, a little behind the times, a little ahead. Perfect! 8)
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The Box, ugly yet pretty
The Box, fashionable yet unfashionable
I remembered these ones tonight while making spaghetti. I had a ton of them. Now they’ll all start coming back.
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